The Myth of Getting Caught Up

Episode 74 transcript: The Myth of Getting Caught Up

Hey there, and welcome to episode 74 of your fun and profitable online business. This is the podcast that helps you build a business that feels as good as it looks. I’m Wendy Muzzy, and I help women entrepreneurs create fun and profitable businesses by simplifying the way they work so they can spend less time feeling overwhelmed and more time making meaningful progress. Now tell me, have you ever caught yourself saying, once I get caught up, I’ll do whatever the thing is. Maybe it’s I’ll start a podcast or share that new offer or work on my membership or finally be able to breathe. I hear some version of this almost every day. And honestly, I used to say it a lot myself. Today, I want to challenge how that one tiny phrase could be creating more stress than you realize. Because I don’t think you’re behind. I just think you’re measuring your business against a finish line that doesn’t exist. And once you see that, things start to feel a little lighter. All right, let’s dive in.

The finish line came from childhood

I actually think the phrase, once I get caught up, follows us from childhood. Most of us grew up with work that had an ending. Finish your homework. Clean your room. Do the dishes. Finish that science project. Whatever it is, the idea was to cross things off your list. Then you were done. There was a sense of completion to it. So it’s no surprise that we carry that same expectation into our entrepreneurship. Up.

Why checking boxes feels responsible

I think there’s another reason this idea is so appealing. Getting caught up feels productive. It feels responsible. Feels like we’re being a good business owner. Because checking things off gives us a sense of accomplishment. You can reply to 10 emails. You can clean off your desktop. You can organize your Google Drive. You can finally rename all those random documents you have in that folder. And at the end of the day, you were busy. But were you really moving your business forward? Those things aren’t always the same thing.

Maintenance can become productive procrastination

Because getting caught up becomes a very productive form of procrastination sometimes. I often say if I have a really big project, my house has never been cleaner. Because it’s my version of procrastination. I love having a clean house. But I’m avoiding doing something in those places. It’s not because I’m lazy. It’s because as maintenance work usually feels safer than growth work. Last week, these three examples came up with clients. They would send an invoice instead of raising their prices. Another person cleaned their inbox instead of publishing their sales page for their new offer. Another person was updating their website because it felt easier than asking someone to buy their offer. Our brains naturally gravitate towards the tasks that feel familiar and low risk. The problem is, if all we ever do is maintain the business, we don’t leave enough space to actually grow it.

A business is a living system

And I think the bigger problem is we think there’s a magical week where our inbox is empty and every project is finished and the bookkeeping is current and every idea has been explored and every decision has been made. And when we think that magical place happens, we think we’ll finally have time to grow our business. But businesses don’t work like homework. They’re living systems. There’s always going to be another email. There’s always going to be another opportunity. There’s always going to be another client question, and there’s always going to be another improvement. And when we believe we are caught up before we can move forward, something interesting happens. We keep postponing the work that actually matters because we’re waiting for permission from a version of our business that will never exist. I can tell you that realization changed everything for me.

The airport is not supposed to be empty

Now, one of my favorite ways to think about this is think about it like an airport. Imagine walking into an airport and hearing, we’re going to reopen once every plane has landed. Just have a wait outside. Everything will reopen at that place. That would be ridiculous. Because airports aren’t designed to be empty. They’re designed to handle movement. Planes arrive. Planes depart. Maintenance happens. Passengers come and go. Delays even happen because of the weather or whatever else. The goal isn’t an empty airport. It’s a well-run one. And your business is exactly the same. There will always be projects. There will always be maintenance. And there will always be ideas waiting for their turn. Success isn’t about eliminating the movement. It’s about managing it well. And I think that’s an important shift because when we’re chasing caught up, we’re often filling our days with busy work instead of meaningful work. None of the things we’re doing are bad. They’re often easier than having sales conversations, though, or actually doing the work that grows the business.

Unfinished decisions create attention debt

Now, here’s another concept that’s really helpful here. I think all of those unfinished things are attention debt. Every half-written sales page or abandoned course outline or browser tab you’ve been meaning to come back to, they’re all postponed decisions, and each one quietly asks for just a tiny piece of your attention. Individually, they’re not that big of a deal. But collectively, they become mentally exhausting. Now, here’s the important part. Your goal isn’t to eliminate all of your attention debt. That’s utterly impossible. Your goal is to keep it at a manageable level so it doesn’t crowd out the work that matters the most.

Replace pressure with priorities

And that changes the question completely. Instead of asking, how do I finish everything? You ask yourself, what deserves my attention today? One question creates pressure. The other creates priorities. Now, here’s what that might look like. Your inbox doesn’t need to be empty. It just needs to be managed. Your idealist doesn’t need to disappear. It just needs a trusted place to stay. Your projects don’t all need to be active. They just need prioritization. And your content doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to help someone take the next step with you. Can you see the difference here? One version expects perfection and the other expects progress. And progress is something you can actually create.

Build a healthy business, not a finished one

Now one thing that’s important here is realizing that you’re not trying to build a finished business. You’re trying to build a healthy business. Healthy businesses always have ideas waiting. They always have improvements to make. They always have systems that they could refine and they always have opportunities they haven’t explored yet.

Action creates clarity

There was once a time in my business I thought I needed my website completely finished before I started this podcast. Then I realized something. The website would never be finished. There would always be another page I could create, more SEO I could do, another tweak that could happen. So the question wasn’t, when will it be done? It became, what’s the most important thing to build next? And you know what happened? starting the podcast actually helped me figure out my website even better. If I’d waited until the website was perfect, I would have delayed the very thing that gave me the direction I was looking for. And that’s true more often than we realize. We think action comes after everything is organized or planned. But many times, organization gets better because we took action. Momentum has a way of creating clarity, more so than planning ever will.

Your action step

All right, let’s get to your action step for this week. Every time you catch yourself saying, once I get caught up, pause and then ask yourself, what am I hoping getting caught up will allow me to do? Whatever it is, ask yourself one more question. What’s actually stopping me from doing that today? You may discover that the thing you’ve been waiting to do never really required getting caught up in the first place. You might be able to start it now. Remember, a business is a living system. There will always be maintenance. There will always be opportunities. There will always be unfinished work. And success doesn’t come from finishing everything. It comes from consistently moving the right things forward.

Make room for meaningful progress

Now, if today’s episode resonated with you, I think you’d really, really enjoy my free CEO hour. It isn’t about checking every box off your to-do list. It’s about setting aside dedicated time each week to focus on the work that actually moves your business forward. Instead of reacting to everything that’s asking for your attention, you’ll spend an hour intentionally working on what matters most. You can learn more and join us at wendymuzzy.com/ceo. All right, that’s it for today. Until next time, happy building your fun and profitable business.